


domesticity

by kingdavidbowie



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M, rainy weather, will is an unfortunate soul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingdavidbowie/pseuds/kingdavidbowie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting tomorrow, he'll stop reading anything in the papers but the weather. He'll become a meteorologist and ditch the damn FBI, never go out in the rain again. Not without a spare battery, anyway. Or maybe he'll just become a misanthrope and live the rest of his life not leaving his home and only talking to his dogs. He'll write interesting essays on his experiences and publish them for money.</p><p>So maybe he's already a misanthrope. Whatever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	domesticity

_will_

Rain, pounding on the windshield of Will’s old car. His heart keeps skipping over beats like a broken CD player, thinking the sound is someone knocking. A thousand knocks, all questions, and him here, with not enough answers. It doesn't help the anxiety building up and clumping together inside of his chest, weighing him down; then again, neither does the sputtering of his car’s dying engine.

"Just get me to the nearest motel so I can shower," he begs it. He tries caressing the wheel, whispering pleasing words into its fake leather curves. No luck. The great beast only has enough energy left in it to crawl to a slow stop on the side of the battered old road he’s been driving on. No one drives past—it’s an abandoned place, and even if it wasn’t, anyone would be an idiot to go out in a storm like the one raging on right now.

 _Damn car._ Will doesn't know if he can ever blame the awful thing. He's feeling pretty weary of everything, too.

He takes the key out of the ignition and drops it, sighing, into the cup holder. It hits the bottom with a clang.

Maybe everyone just has a limit—a number of crime scenes and corpses they can touch before they're dead, too, just on the inside and… not the other thing. He wouldn't find it hard to believe, that if he itched off a layer of his skin he'd find sickness and decay underneath. Yeah, he’s definitely close to whatever integer that is, if not already past it.

He gives his neck a break and lets his forehead drop to the steering wheel. "My life is a mess," he tells his knees. His curly hair tickles the edges of his glasses. He contemplates the idea of a correlation between the state of his hair and the state of his life. It seems loosely accurate.

Will reaches across the seat for his phone, messily drawing it from his jacket pocket. He clicks the screen on, but it stays black, only mirroring his own distressed face back at him.

 _Shit._ When had he gotten this bad? It's in his red eyes, his sallow cheekbones, pale and cold-looking. He _is_ cold. He sighs again. Dead engine, dead phone battery, dead skin. He’s a walking corpse driving around in an equally undead vehicle. He's like zombie _Barbie._

"Spectacular," he mumbles.

Okay—so this is his low moment. He has reached the maximum amplitude of shittiness capable of being heaped upon a man, and things can only go up from here. He hopes so, anyway. Looking out the window, things don't look very promising. He hears thunder rumbling tiredly in the distance. It sounds even more pissed and world-weary than Will is. He kind of wants to congratulate it on that.

So he's had a bad day, gone a little mad again, seen a few red bloodstains on walls that were perfectly white. According to Jack Crawford. At least he's not one of the murder victims he had to examine this afternoon. There's always that. It's not a particularly optimistic thought, but he goes with it anyway as he grabs his jacket. Of course, it's the one without a hood. _Dammit._

Starting tomorrow, he'll stop reading anything in the papers but the weather. He'll become a meteorologist and ditch the damn FBI, never go out in the rain again. Not without a spare battery, anyway. Or maybe he'll just become a misanthrope and live the rest of his life not leaving his home and only talking to his dogs. He'll write interesting essays on his experiences and publish them for money.

So maybe he's already a misanthrope. Whatever.

Within two seconds of his exiting his crappy car Will is soaked to the bone; water runs down his face and drenches his dark hair and saturates his worn-out shoes. The world around him is wet, but more than anything else, gray. He probably blends right in. He walks, looking for something, anything. It wouldn’t take much to exceed his low expectations for this endeavor, he reminds whatever it is that controls his fate, the damn weather. He’d settle for a tree to huddle under at this point, as much as it might suck to fall asleep cold and drenched and stricken with anxiety. In the rain. Really, it’s not too much to ask for.

He doesn't see the house ahead until one of its windows lights up, a yellow square on a black canvas. It's like a beacon in the dark, and Will is jogging towards it like a moth to a flame before he's even made a conscious decision to do it. _Warmth. Light._ If he could just have one of them, he’d deal with anything else… Sometime during his trek through the storm, he’d grown more animal, focusing more on basic needs than anything else. Now, he straightens his gait, tries to appear a little more human, even though he doesn’t feel it. If he could just stand on that porch, he’d never say a sarcastic word again…

He can see the house more clearly when he's just coming up to it. It's a lonely building, sitting on the side of the empty country road like a stubborn child run away from home, but it's grand, if not a little aged and weathered. Ivy that ought to be green but looks like a darker shade of gray runs up the brick sides of it; it looks more regal than wild. Will thinks of wine, refined with age. The place is a classical piece of music, composed of two stories and a red front door superimposed on a white wall. Italian, or Greek. A glimpse of a sparkling chandelier is visible in a large window above the door.

Will's shoes leave squelching wet prints on the house's front step as he rings the doorbell. He smiles up at the covered porch, mumbling a brief thank-you to something out there. He hears the ring of the bell echo throughout the house, four notes of a minor scale. Shivers, cold. Or maybe it's just the bell that sounds creepy as all hell.

He thinks of haunted houses, for a moment—hollow and dark, like open coffins. When the door swings open, he decides immediately that it's not the house that weirds him out. It’s the man that inhabits it.

“Uh—hello, sir,” Will tries, and dear god does he sound pathetic, even to his own ears. His words leak rain, heavy and weary.

The man in the doorway, apparently wearing only a bathrobe, glances over Will's dripping frame while Will drags his own eyes down the man's succinct ensemble. It looks silk. Will can't even afford a silk tie.

“Good evening.” The stranger's voice sounds as rich and elegant as the damn house, accent and everything. _It figures._ “Can I help you?” He even sounds like he means it—no, maybe not completely honest, but immaculate at sounding caring. Will has to forcibly shut off the part of his mind that tends to analyze everything he comes across before he can think straight.

_Think about something else—like, anything. Suggestion: shit, I could probably get off on this man’s voice alone?_

_Anyway._

_Politeness. Amiability. Approachability._

He runs an awkward hand through his sopping hair, self-conscious in the light of the porch, not to mention the older, cleaner, drier man standing before him. "Can I use your phone?" His voice feels soggy and used, like an old, wet napkin. Not incredibly attractive; not that it ever is. Under the rain, it’s worse; his edges have deteriorated, the crispness of his voice, melted away. "My engine died," he explains with a loose gesture back at the gray road. "And my phone."

He is such a damn unfortunate person. He can handle that part. Just not people noticing. He doesn't appreciate the way the man in the doorway is looking at him, all dark cat eyes analyzing him and stupid, perfectly parted hair even late at night. It makes him want to pull his shirt over his face and hide, as if then he'd be invisible. He wouldn't feel so shitty, at any rate.

The man, despite seeing Will as the soaked, non-weather-predicting, antisocial thing that he is, is entirely accommodating, though. He’s… kind. That’s one word for it. ”Of course, come in," he says, his tone warm. His fingertips graze the back of Will's jacket as he gestures him inside. It’s almost like he’s being pushed inside. Will’s not sure if he minds or not.

 _Warmth. Light._ So why is the chill still frosty on his bones, under his skin?

The door closes behind them with a muted thud, and Will thinks of a coffin shutting him inside, unable to breathe. Their footsteps are loud on the marble floor in the house’s grand foyer. At least he'd be out of the rain, in that case. He shivers again, and the stranger notices.

"Here, sit," he says, leading Will from the high-ceilinged hall into a smaller drawing room and sitting him down on a sofa. Soft but firm—expensive. This room is fancy as hell, too, but tasteful in its opulence—paintings hanging on the walls that don't scream rare and expensive so much as simple but eye-catching. _Eye-ensnaring_? He sees the color red crossing white wherever he looks, and blood comes to mind. He bites back a sigh and curses his mind for being so paranoid. The house owner is staring at him, which… isn't comfortable in the slightest, actually.

"You haven't walked far, I hope," he says, already with a blanket in hand. _He moves fast._ Will smiles to himself, feeling wry. He has an awful sense of humor. Doesn't really care. The man's hands deftly shake out the blue fabric and it settles over Will like coffin linen. Or like a blanket. Because he's not in a damn coffin, and he really shouldn't have to remind himself of that fact.

“Better?”

Will nods hesitantly, making a point not to snuggle into the fabric, inviting as it is. It stretches across his frame untouched instead, accepted in theory but not quite in practice. ”It wasn’t a long walk. My car's just around the corner," Will says—a small lie. _Best to sort things out as soon as possible._ "I saw your window.” He keeps his sentences succinct, as if they might prevent any connection from being made between himself and the house. Something inside Will’s chest is telling him he ought to escape, and besides, he doesn’t want to _intrude._

The man nods, glancing out the room’s tall windows at the rain beating down. Will takes it as a small opportunity to stare. The house owner’s face is a perfect mask of seriousness, but it's just that—a mask, and Will can see it perfectly despite its seamlessness. He just has no idea what's behind it. His mind wanders for a moment and considers the list he’s been subconsciously compiling since the door first opened—serial killer? Homosexual? Meteorologist? He doesn't have enough evidence, and the sitting room is so devoid of it that he comes back to the first one—but nope, he's not at work, he's on his way home, actually, so he's going to ignore that...

Then the stranger goes thoughtfully, still looking out, ”This road is quite empty, afraid. The house's last owner was shot in the chest and wasn't found for a week." He smiles slightly and says, "I'll go get the phone," then walks out into the hall. He says it like he’s _talking about what he might have for breakfast._ So… serenely. He’s probably one of those theater-types, the ones who get off on talking with voices laced with unnecessary melodrama and getting reactions from people they can screw with. Will isn’t falling for it. All the same—

The second one. Will will definitely consider the second thing, if only so that he doesn’t even have to think about any alternatives.

To be honest, part of him rather relishes the idea. _Homosexual._ It’s the robe, probably—the way it makes a V at the crossing, revealing just a thin line of his chest. The man would probably look less tantalizing if he ditched the thing altogether; it's the mystery that catches Will's eye. He winces at the phrasing of that thought and tries to erase it from his memory, but it only makes the words stick. God, he needs to get his crap together. Tomorrow, he’ll register for a dating site full of normal people with normal salaries after he quits his job, and yeah, he’s completely kidding himself. He sighs again. _No going back._

Will eyes the man's retreating back with a mix of interest and apprehension, then looks down and realizes he's clutching onto the blanket with white knuckles. He glares at them and mumbles, "Relax." They don't listen.

The homeowner strides back through the doorway a moment later, home phone in hand. He hands it off to Will, who just hopes the man won't notice that his fingers are shaking. Of course, he looks down and sees.

"I'll turn up the heating," he says, and it's so kind that Will wants to kiss his slippered feet. At the same time, though, the venereal manner in which the man says it makes Will think of sex, or the devil, or maybe just… both. A fun thought.

"Thanks," he says mildly, taking the phone. He dials Alana Bloom's phone number. The dial tone rings, rings, rings. The sound of it makes him cringe in spite of himself; it's associated with so many nervous, awkward phone calls he's already made. The sound peals again, and he's pressing the phone tight to his ear while it's going, "This is Dr. Alana Bloom; leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." He leaves a message, feeling each word like another pound dropped onto his shoulders. Anxiety runs through his body like electricity, and he’s not even sure what kind it is—social, from talking to the house owner when he’s already tired as all hell from work? Or something more?

Will gives the phone a pleading look before punching in Jack Crawford’s number, words already on his lips: “Sorry for calling this late, Jack, but my engine died, and everything’s closed by now; Alana didn’t answer…”

And then, nothing. Just the rain again, knocking at Will’s doors.

The opulent house and all its rich colors goes black as a pit, the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen nearby ceases. The clock that’s been keeping Will’s heartbeat going at a steady pace stops pulsing, comatose. He can only hear the rain, and breathing, his and the other man’s. The drawing room is dark as ink save for the window, which features a world slightly less black, lit up by a sliver of moon in the sky. _Power outage_?

Will gets up from the sofa, leaving the blanket behind somewhere as he glances around, trying to gather his bearings. Window, east wall. Door they entered in, west. He’s some place in the middle of the room.

Panic hits him hard in the chest for one moment. One thought throbs in his brain—he has to get out, now. It’s an unreasonable thought with the weather as it is, his car and phone being dead, but it resounds throughout his head, unmistakably honest. Gut feeling. The moment passes, but the feeling lingers in his limbs, expanding in his chest with every beat of his heart.

He pushes the feeling way in an effort to ignore it. It’s a foolish thought now, to find another place to sit out the storm. He could sleep in his car until morning, but he’s in a perfectly nice, warm house right here… It makes sense to stay, at least until he gets thrown out. Will’s heart still beats too hard for his liking.

“The lightning must have hit a line,” he hears from in front of him. A silhouette starts to materialize there, a patch of lighter black on the darker. The house owner. “You’re alright?”

 _Not quite sure, actually._ “Yeah. I’m fine,” Will says. A smirk crosses his lips. Now everything is dead. With that, the undead apocalypse begins. “Maybe the fuse popped?” he offers.

“Maybe,” the man concedes. “I’ll check,” he says, and his quiet steps across the carpet are audible now, though still nearly silent. Will listens to the man leave the room, his other senses heightening in the dim lighting. The house owner’s slippers clip, sound dampened, across the carpet, and his silk robe swishes as he turns out into the hall. Louder steps on the marble floor out there, turning into staircase steps, more muted and far away. They fade off for a bit.

In spite of the general aura of scary as shit-ness that’s lingering in the air, Will still coughs when the man returns. No lights. Just—“candles,” he mumbles as the house’s owner hands him one of the lit tapers. “Well, it fits.”

The man’s face looks different lit by the small flame emanating from the tall, thin candle in his hand. Less of a mask—an eyebrow raised, a warm-colored face in the dark, a personality. “Power outage,” he says without prompt, then, curiously, “To what picture are you referring?”

“Your house already looks like something out of a gothic novel; this basically cinches it,” says Will. _Candles._ Okay, so lots of people would have them in case of a power outage. It still makes him want to roll his eyes as he takes in the room’s blood red and pale white— _horror-esque_ aesthetic. _If he’s not a murderer, or gay, he’s got to be an actor. Or a writer._

The man smirks.

“My name is Hannibal Lecter,” he says, kind of purring the words, much to Will’s embarrassment. His dark eyes reflect the flames they’re holding onto like mirrors, as if there was nothing inside them in the first place. “You’re welcome to stay here until the storm ends, if you’d like.” It’s on his face—he’s enjoying the shit out of this situation. Will is just a fly dancing in his vast spiderweb, and now, if he wasn’t already, he’s definitely stuck in it.

He hesitates before answering, though, not wanting to admit the truth of the matter. “I insist,” Hannibal says kindly, and Will sighs inside.

 _“Thank you, then.”_ An admission of defeat. He tries to sound at least a little grateful. Even if his engine hadn’t died, he’d still have been stuck in a storm before reaching home, anyway. It seems his ending up in Hannibal Lecter’s house is kismet.

“Will Graham,” he adds, making a point of not going for a handshake by putting his spare hand with the other on his candle. Hannibal’s eyes follow the movement, thinking, and Will swallows back the desire to run. P _lease be gay please be gay for hell’s sake just don’t be another serial killer, for god’s sake. Don’t I deal with enough of them at work?_ The man’s eyes look demonic in the candlelight, and Will’s usual paranoia doesn’t help him one bit. _Actor. Writer. Psychiatrist._

“Do you always look at people like they’re consumable?” he mumbles, and doesn’t realize he’s actually said it out loud until he sees Hannibal pause, tilt his head a little. Fascinated, as if Will were behind the bars of a zoo cage. An experiment.

“Is that what I look like?”

Will shrugs. “In a phrase, yeah.” _Way to skip over the question._

Hannibal’s eyes gleam with interest. He takes in the room, Will, greedily for a few seconds, experiencing the world with all his senses. Inhales, exhales, looking more calm, more centered. “I’m a doctor,” he says. Okay. It explains the drawings in the hall Will saw coming inside, medical-type sketches of various parts of the human body. Maybe it goes so far even as to clarify the tendencies towards red and white decor—like surgical incisions, cuts—but it could just be this room, the interior designer.

The room doesn’t look like a surface without depth, though, designed by someone and paid for by Hannibal. Will feels as if, in this room, he’s inside of Hannibal’s heart, dark and red and sepulchral.

His being a doctor doesn’t help the first list, just narrows it down again to items one and two. _Please don’t prove my instincts right, Doctor Lecter._

“FBI,” Will says shortly, unwilling to explain what it is exactly that he does there to Hannibal. He already feels as if the man can see right through him; he doesn’t have to _tell_ the doctor what’s there and make it even easier.

“That must be interesting,” the man murmurs, and Will raises his chin a little, daring Hannibal to probe further. He doesn’t, not with words, anyway. A pause in conversation ensues before the doctor speaks up again, his voice clearer in the dark. “If I desire to consume you, then your eyes indicate that you desire to know me.”

 _Will bites his lip before No, not really_ can slip out. On edge, he says simply, “Curiosity.” It’s not entirely a lie.

Hannibal nods, a smile just starting to stretch his lips wider. “That’s reasonable. You are in my home, after all. The questions must be everywhere.” He sits down on the couch and indicates for Will to sit beside him. Will sits, posture vertical, refusing to relax even if he’d wanted it to. It’s so _dark,_ even though his eyes are adjusting to it. It makes him feel like he’s sitting that much closer to the doctor.

“Perhaps we’ll both get what we desire,” Hannibal suggests, and then Will can’t help it, he’s laughing, the sound loud in the quiet, quaking through his stiff torso and breaking him into pieces. The doctor’s mouth is open a little, curious. He doesn’t understand this aspect of Will, at least. Which makes sense—who understands madness? Will sure as hell doesn’t. It’s comforting, though, in here. An escape from reality.

He decides to be honest with Hannibal. Looking at that older cherub’s face, glancing in those dark eyes before settling his gaze on the man’s ear—safer—he admits, “I’m trying to figure out if you want to kiss me or kill me.”

The doctor’s lips twitch nearly imperceptibly. “So am I, I think,” he says, and god, it’s a bad joke, but Will still laughs. _He’s not serious. Or… he is? I can’t tell from his face. It’s not even a mask so much as… nothingness. He looks empty, like a stuffed doll._ Will, on the other hand, feels like an open book. Always has, so what does it matter if he’s more readable to Hannibal than most? He sighs internally.

“You’re too much; you really are,” he says, still smirking. Leftover pieces of a laugh.

“Habit,” Hannibal admits, and Will entirely believes it.

_hannibal_

He wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t sure about his intentions towards Will—Hannibal is still considering his options as he leads the man to the guest bedroom, shows him where he can sleep for the night. He doesn’t have enough information; that’s the problem. Will hasn’t wronged him yet, given him a reason to serve him up on a shining platter next to some greens, drizzled over with a nice sauce. Hannibal holds his breath waiting for the words to drop, but they don’t. Yes, Will is obviously suspicious of Hannibal, even frightened—rightly so—but he’s honest about it. And that’s what gets him.

Part of Hannibal wants to kill the man just to squash the small inkling of a fear inside that Will Graham _will_ figure him out. Besides that, he relishes the idea of wrapping his hands around the neck of an FBI agent and then escaping a guilty verdict. If the action itself wouldn’t make his heart beat a little faster, the thrill of the afterwards would, he thinks.

Will does have a nice neck. Pale, a little tense, with dark, wet curls sticking to it. Rainwater adhesive. Unable to resist, Hannibal allows his fingers to graze the back of it as he shows Will where the bathroom is on the second floor, down the hall. The man doesn’t even flinch, just rolls his eyes at the gesture and says, “Got it, bathroom’s on the left. Mind if I shower before sleeping?” He’d been trying to be polite before, Hannibal had noticed; now, he’s slipping, maybe just doesn’t care now that he’s been formally invited to stay. Hannibal should be offended by his boldness, but it only intrigues him.

“Not at all,” Hannibal answers smoothly. No hint of his internal monologues shows on his face. “The towels are in the cabinet; feel free to use anything in there.”

Will opens up the cabinet door going, “Guessing you have a shit load of hair products in here,” and laughs quietly when he’s proven correct by a cursory glance inside. _Really rather rude once he’s come inside, but…_

The thing is, Hannibal’s not even wearing anything scented or visible right now. Will had figured out his habits in spite of that, apparently. He wonders how much the man sees when he looks at another person. Does he see people in colors, or in scents and sounds, like Hannibal tends to? Or something else?

Maybe Will is like him.

It’s a romantic thought. Melodramatic—he wasn’t lying about that, either. It was a lucky guess, of course. It means nothing. What Hannibal wants to do with the man, he will. It’s only a matter of what he desires more of Will.

For now, he waits.

He watches Will with avid curiosity, looks to see where the man’s eyes flicker. There’s not much to see in the dark, but Will still looks enraptured in trying to figure out where every single door and turn is. Hannibal follows him back to the guest room, where he leaves his shoes and socks, still damp with rain. Follows him until Will takes an abrupt one-eighty once they’re back in the bathroom and goes, “Are you planning on observing me while I wash, or should I wait before I start stripping…?” His voice is warm and rough, like summer, like tree bark.

But Hannibal’s been getting too caught up in his senses with this gift from the gods, it’s true. He smiles politely at Will and dips his head in a nod. “Not unless you wish me to.”

Will snorts, but he takes a step closer to Hannibal, standing inside the doctor’s radius of usually impenetrable personal space bubble. Hannibal breathes the man in, all his scents—rain, cheap aftershave, fear, intelligence. The colors: blues, greens, browns, reds. He wonders how Will would taste, in numerous respects.

Will is peering into Hannibal’s face, his brown eyes narrowed in thought. “Do you really think you’re going to figure me out by staring at me?” the doctor asks, amused.

“Did you have something else in mind?”

Hannibal considers that as his eyes sweep down Will’s neck, coming to a rest at the man’s collarbone, pale and cold looking. “You could always ask,” he says. He doesn’t lift his gaze, just turns on his heel and strides out the bathroom on that rather enigmatic note. He’ll leave Will with something to ponder while he showers, all the better if it’s him.

He waits in the guest room, lying on the bed and eyeing the ceiling. It’s painted a dark, sylvan green, texturized with swift brush strokes. The last time he was in this room, he’d invited a woman to stay there and then snapped her neck. The first time she touched the sheets, she was already gone. A small pity. The room is still fairly free of dust thanks to the cleaning service Hannibal hires out every few weeks to deep clean his house. He keeps the place clean, but unused rooms like this always collect dust more than the other ones. It looks okay, though, so he doesn’t move to find a dust rag, just waits. He thinks of pleasant things.

Will returns a while later, his skin pink instead of blue-hued, with a towel wrapped around his waist and the candle in one hand, his clothes in the other. When he sees Hannibal he pauses in his step, uncertain if this is the right room, probably. But his shoes are right there, by the door, so it is, obviously. There’s just a man in his bed, with candles on nightstands lit on either side of it as if this were some romantic evening for a couple.

Hannibal can already tell he’s going to love tormenting this man. The thought implies a certain length of time for their being together, which is… a little unrealistic, probably, unless Hannibal really decides to go far with Will, keep him here until he feels like letting him go. It’s a foolish thought, yes, but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to come home to after working odd hours at the hospital? He smiles at the idea, and Will stares.

Whatever happens, the man’s still here, right now.

 _Are you planning on observing me, or…?_ “Same question as earlier,” Hannibal reads aloud off of Will’s face, and the man gives back a rather exasperated nod. “My apologies; I was just waiting for you.” He glances at the wet clothes in Will’s arms. “You can wear something of mine, if you’d like.”

He watches, amused, as something sparks behind Will’s olive eyes. _There’s a bit of conflict there._ After a moment he says, “Sure, that’d be nice,” his words slow to come.

Hannibal springs to his feet, agile, leaving his slippers by Will’s old brown shoes when he goes back to his own bedroom at the end of the second floor hall. He stops in front of the dresser for a moment, considering, before finding Will an old white shirt of his and a pair of long pajama pants.

Back in the guest room, he tosses the clothes at his guest and then waits in the hall for Will to change. After a minute, Hannibal raps on the door, recognizing the reverse situation of the action as Will opens it up, showered and clean and dry except for his hair. Warm.

“You have questions,” says Hannibal.

Will steps aside to let him in.

There’s something different to his posture compared to what it was when he first walked in—he’d looked anxious; Hannibal had practically heard the man’s heart thrumming inside his chest, quick as a hummingbird’s wings. Now, Will is calmer—he’s donned his own mask, and now the two of them are facing each other on the stage, about to say their lines. It’s a play.

Hannibal smiles.

They settle on the bed, sitting next to each other and leaning on the headboard with pillows all over the place. The room is mostly for show, after all. The sheets are still soft in spite of that. Hannibal observes Will as he digs his toes into the creamy white fabric, bliss in his eyes, in the open part to his pink lips. The man appears more comfortable than ever—effect of the shower, perhaps? His posture is looser, the set to his shoulders less tense. Hannibal doesn’t comment on it; it’d probably do the very opposite to the man’s anxiety levels. And Will really does look nice as he is right now.

“Nice decor,” he says to Hannibal, probably just to break the silence in the room. The doctor smiles at him, pleased.

“Thank you.” He arches an eyebrow, leans his head back on the pillow behind him. “Would you like to go first?”

“Out of curiosity,” Will says dryly, “how am I paying for these?” _Brave, but not thoughtless._

“Do you think my answers are worth that much?”

He meets the doctor’s gaze, his own light-colored eyes narrowed. There’s so much _in them,_ so much to discover, and Hannibal finds them endlessly fascinating in spite of himself. “I think _you_ value them highly,” Will says, lifting his chin.

Hannibal smiles. “You’re smart.”

“Or I just think I am.”

“You have questions,” he says again, quieter. He lets a bit more of emotion into his voice, seasoning it to the mood. If Will thinks he’s being honest, that could be advantageous to his plans, even if they’re not set in stone just yet.

“Yeah,” Will mumbles. He settles his chin on his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs. Holding himself together, or perhaps condensing into something stronger. When he catches Hannibal’s eyes again, he meets the doctor’s gaze like a battle front, daring in the set of his features. _Not afraid. Intending to win._

Hannibal wonders if this is a battle.

“Do you often let bedraggled strangers into your home?” He looks up and sees that Will is smiling slightly. If this isn’t a war, it’s definitely a game.

Hannibal steeples his fingers under his chin. “It was the polite thing to do, was it not?”

“You like to be polite.” It’s a statement and a question.

He smiles. “I value civility highly.”

Will has two fingers up at his left knee. Two fingers for two answers. How might they be redeemed? It really is a game, whatever it is that they’re playing. Hannibal sends a brief thank you up to a deity he usually doesn’t put much stock in. He hadn’t _sent for_ a package to arrive on his doorstep, but one had come anyway. And how interesting this gift is…

Hannibal puts two fingers of his own to Will’s neck—taking his pulse. The man gives him a curious tilt of the head but doesn’t comment. Hannibal’s not measuring the pace of Will’s heart so much as feeling the life beating under his skin, testing himself. Will’s blood thrums under his touch, fast and hot. How would he be more enjoyable? On a plate, in a bed—both, perhaps?

His guest laughs suddenly, breaking into Hannibal’s train of thought. “Are you taking my pulse, Doctor?” There’s so much conflict in Will’s voice. Light intermingling with darkness, not sure whether it wants to fight or join it. He’s broken. Hannibal realizes then that he wants to put the man back together—maybe not how he was in the first place, before whatever happened to him did, but in a new picture.

In answer to Will’s question, he merely meets the man’s gaze. His guest doesn’t break away. Maybe he doesn’t even want to.

He makes his decision then. He’ll allow Will Graham to live.

From here, things will get interesting.

If Will is uncomfortable by being touched by a relative stranger, he doesn’t show it. His countenance retains its strength, refusing to draw back and daring Hannibal to go further.

The doctor licks his lips, shifts his hand around the other man’s neck and pulls him in. He kisses the right side of Will’s mouth, faintly but slowly, and murmurs, “One.” Will’s face is largely unreadable, but his lips are turned up ever so slightly, as if pleased or amused. _Hmm._

He tangles a hand in the man’s curls, dark with water droplets. Rain pounds on the roof, the sound dulled to a low bass falling from the ceiling. Will smells like Hannibal’s soap now, but in essence he is the same as when he walked in—anxious, but without fear. Hannibal breathes him in, savors the taste of his scent as if he were walking past a bakery or a restaurant. He won’t eat Will, not tonight, but damned if he won’t treat him like a fine dish of desert.

He kisses the left corner of the man’s lips, unable to resist darting his tongue out for a small taste before he withdraws. “Two,” he says, settling back next to Will on the bed. They must look like an old married couple, sitting like this; the idea humors Hannibal. The idea that Will could ever stay is a fantasy, but it’s a pretty picture, if anything. The two of them, having a lovely time together killing the rude and then eating their livers over a big dinner table. _Domestic._ A smile curls his lips.

Seeming to have recognized how their game will go, Will narrows his eyes as if staging a battle plan. Hannibal watches him sort out logistics and resists making another move towards the man. It’s not his turn, after all.

“I take it you’re gay, then.”

Okay, he’s a little disappointed with that one. “That’s not a very interesting question,” he mumbles. But it’s a question nonetheless, and their game has rules, albeit unspoken ones. “I take what I like.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Bullshit answer.”

Hannibals sighs, exasperated. “I’m pansexual.”

The other man grins. He looks so young, so _alive._ It’s breathtaking. Hannibal shifts his entire body over Will this time, straddling the man’s legs between his own. He captures Will’s mouth this time and takes him mercilessly, tearing at the man’s walls with his tongue, greedy. Will laughs into the kiss, and Hannibal pauses, momentarily surprised.

“A bit much for one question, don’t you think?” the man asks.

“It was a bullshit one; I’m merely making up for it,” Hannibal paraphrases, and dips his head for another domineering kiss on his part. His hair grazes Will’s forehead, brushing past with the consistency of feathers. Will’s fortress starts to crumble at the sides; he lets out a small sigh of contentment, his body lax. Hannibal’s hands start for the hem of the man’s shirt, but other fingers pull them back.

“I get more questions, don’t I?” Will looks up at him with a stubborn look on his face, but he’s smiling, too, and suddenly Hannibal’s not sure anymore who’s winning this game.

“Go on, then.” Hannibal makes no move to let Will free, just stays kneeling over him, his wrists still in the man’s fingers. Will won’t let go, either. _Smart._

“Have you ever… gone hunting?” the man asks, and the doctor’s mask is back in place, although he can’t help the small smile stretching his lips. Laugh lines crinkle the skin outside Will’s eyes—it’s a joke. Admittedly, it is rather funny.

Hannibal settles more of his weight onto Will, is pleased with the small gasp of air that puffs out the man’s rosy lips in response. “A few times.”

“I like to fish myself,” Will says, his voice a breath out, and Hannibal has to think about that one for a second. He was sure that the man didn’t mean hunting in the traditional sense of the word, but if that’s so, then… _Fishing._ Will is dancing around the real question, the big one, or Hannibal thinks he is, anyway. _Have you ever killed anyone? Is that what you want to ask me, Will Graham?_

He gives the man’s hands a pointed look, and Will releases Hannibal’s wrists after a brief moment of staring up at the doctor, his grip tight. How much of this is work for him, trying to figure out if Hannibal’s the real thing? How much of this is genuine pleasure in his eyes? Hannibal isn’t quite sure yet, to be honest.

His palms glide under the man’s shirt, feeling all of the crevices and angles to Will’s chest. His skin is still damp from the shower, his shirt clinging to his stomach, to Hannibal’s fingers. Aside from inconveniences, the doctor appreciates the lack of electricity, the candlelit aesthetic here. It’s somewhere between romantic and what Will would probably refer to as gothic. He smiles at the thought.

It troubles him a bit, too, though. He likes Will, finds his company pleasant, and not in the temporary manner with which he appreciates dinner guests and nice meals. Hannibal is getting the feeling, as his hands explore Will’s body, that he won’t be content with one meal, one taste, one day. He’s not going to figure the man out in just a few short hours. There’s something tantalizing about a mystery, yes, but the urge to understand, to know, is still there.

A god would know everything. As much power as he’s exerted over others, in killing, in consuming, in feeding, controlling, Hannibal still doesn’t understand some people, and Will is one of them. When he dips his head again to press his lips to the man’s neck, he is bellicose at the thought—gracefully and teasingly sucking on the pale, damp skin there, but aggressive. No mercy—Will makes a surprised noise and Hannibal pays no mind to his comfort, only wanting to make him feel a little of his own frustration.

When he tears away, though, the man doesn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest. Just blissful, if anything, with a dreamy look to his wide green eyes, parted lips, flushed cheeks. Hannibal’s not sure how he feels about that, not sure what he wanted to happen, just knows that this isn’t what he’d been expecting to be doing tonight.

“I think I’ve got a better one,” Will says. Hannibal’s still on top of him, but he doesn’t ask the doctor to keep his hands to himself this time, just talks in spite of them.

Hannibal arcs his eyebrows. “And what would that be?” He plays with Will’s hair for a moment, twists a wet curl around his finger, then breathes out deeply and shifts his body, collapsing next to his guest on the bed. And here he is, eyeing the dimly lit ceiling again. It’s a similar shade of green to Will’s eyes.

Will turns his head so that their faces are close together, dark in the night. He’s composed of shadows and shades of brown and gray. A pretty picture.

“You could be a vampire,” the man says, and Hannibal can’t help it, he just grins at his smiling guest and then ends up laughing, a low but long chuckle in the silence of the storm.

“That might depend on your definition of the term,” he says slowly, after a minute. His dark eyes glimmer. He watches as Will considers this with a thoughtful look to his face, his eyes narrowing and his lips pursing. _He makes the most fascinating expressions,_ Hannibal thinks, and yes, he’s biased here and other people make the same faces every day. And he sees them, too, but they’re not like this, he’s sure.

“Meaning that, if anything, _metaphorically_ you might be.” Hannibal just waits for Will to go on, wanting to hear what the man is thinking. _Endlessly fascinated._ Will runs a hand through his curls, scratches at his scalp as if answers might fall out. “Like someone who feeds off of the life of others in order to live himself. Not necessarily _physically…”_ Hannibal smiles slightly. “But monetarily, perhaps. Hence the house. Or maybe you just…” Will trails off, staring at the doctor’s lips, a cryptic look to his demeanor.

“Go on,” Hannibal murmurs.

His guest shakes his head. “I don’t know.” But it’d been on his face for a moment, the truth to Hannibal’s existence, his response to it.

The doctor is tempted to push Will further, but it’d be impolite, perhaps. He’s not sure how fragile the man is, what would break if Hannibal told him all his secrets. Instead he says, “Might I ask you a question?”

“I don’t know; how will you pay for the answer?” Will asks, mimicking Hannibal’s tone—exaggerated crypticness, melodrama. The doctor rolls his eyes.

“Is that how I talk in your mind?”

“Without flaw,” his guest assures him. His lips lift into a rather cocky smile. “What do you want to know?”

Hannibal catches the man’s gaze with his own, holding him there. “Why did you stay?”

“When all of my instincts were screaming at me to turn around and run before you even answered the door?” Will frowns at the ceiling, crosses his arms across his chest. He sighs. “It’s cold and wet outside. I’m always anxious about something; at least it’s warm in here.” A small smile, but not necessarily a happy one. “Like an oasis in the desert,” he mumbles. “A trap, but a comfortable one to die in.” The man reaches out and touches Hannibal’s face, slides a finger down the doctor’s cheek. “You’re dangerous, I think. Whatever the hell that even means.” A shrug. “But I’m sick of getting stuck in the rain. And you’re…”

“Immensely attractive,” Hannibal supplies, probably too smugly, but hell, it’s no more sassy than anything Will’s said. The man smirks.

“Something like that.”

Hannibal smiles softly. “I like you, too, Will.”

They both grin at each other, and it’s a fluffy, idealistic, romantic moment, Hannibal knows—something that would normally bore him half to death. But the fact that it’s this man changes things, somehow. Another question, another mystery. This time, he just sighs, shifts his head on the pillow under it to get more comfortable.

Will looks pleased that he’s managed to get Hannibal so far off course his intended plans, even though he hadn’t really known them in the first place. “I mean, you’re nice and all, too, “ he goes after a minute, “but I’m just interested in the house, Doctor. These are some immensely comfortable sheets here; don’t mind me if I decide to commandeer them.”

Hannibal sighs. “Are you ever serious?”

The man’s smile twitches out of place for a nearly imperceptible second. “Toomuch,” he says more quietly. His words blur together—tiredness. Well, he does look weary.

“You’re falling asleep,” says the doctor.

“Nah, I’mjust… resting,” Will rejoins, and turns into Hannibal. And then there’s a man curled around his body, his curls tickling Hannibal’s neck, one arm sprawled across the doctor’s chest as if he might manage to keep Hannibal there with it.

_That was fast—he’s asleep._

He listens to the man breathe for a minute, feels the rise and fall of his chest against his own. Life.

He could do it so easily—carry Will downstairs, keep him locked up in the basement. Cuff him right to the bed, even. Maybe the man wouldn’t protest. Hannibal studies the part of Will’s face that isn’t buried in the doctor’s neck. Tired eyes finally closed, air coming in and out his pink lips, a peaceful look. He looks like a statue. A demigod. _Fallen angel?_

He almost does it, almost moves away to get to his feet. But it’s not what he _wants._

Hannibal shifts in place, but only to blow out the candles on either side of them. With that, the darkness is complete.

_will_

When he wakes up, Hannibal is gone and the lights are back on. Sunlight filters through the windows of the guest room, crossing Will’s face in rectangular shapes like shadows. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes, swings his legs over the side of the bed and sets his bare feet on the ground. _This is actually a really fucking soft carpet._ He drags his toes across it, yawns and stretches his arms.

He blinks a few times, tries to get used to the light, and only notices the note on the night stand at his side when he’s getting to his feet. It’s in cursive, of course, written with a nice ink pen on thick stationery paper. Will puts on his glasses—had Hannibal taken them off for him last night?—and squints at the note, sleep still in his eyes.

_Hello Will,_

_I hope you had a nice sleep last night. Unfortunately, I was called in to take a shift at the hospital this morning. Breakfast is in the kitchen if you like._

_If you want to call for help with your car, you can still use the phone—the electricity came back on early this morning._

_It was lovely to meet you. Come over for dinner sometime?_

_Hannibal_

His cell phone number is listed below his signature in an elegant script that Will’s only seen in fonts for word programs. He snorts, rereading the words and hearing Hannibal’s voice saying them inside his head. The man is so _prim_ —what would he be like without the mask, the control? Will has a feeling that everything to the doctor is trained—the handwriting, the smooth speech, the wardrobe. _What’s underneath it all?_ He glances around the room. He hasn’t the slightest idea. _No evidence,_ he thinks again.

His clothes from yesterday are sitting folded on a dresser, dry and slightly warm to the touch, as if Hannibal had tossed them in the dryer only a few minutes ago. Curious, he wanders out into the hall to see if the man is really gone yet, but the only sound throughout the house is that of his own footsteps. He’s alone.

In the daylight, Hannibal’s house isn’t so nerve-wracking anymore. _So many windows._ They all let in light, and Will laughs after thinking that there may be something to the vampire theory yet—he’s only really seen the doctor in the dark, under electric lights and candle flames. As for himself, though, Will loves the feeling of sunlight hitting his skin, warm and bright. If humanity has made him want to off himself a million times over, the world outside hasn’t. He opens a window in the kitchen first thing, breathing in the fresh morning air. _It’s so nice._

He likes Hannibal. He’s been attracted to many people he’s met, but Will can’t think of another one of them that made him laugh so much, even if that was just Hannibal being his strange self. He’d been so on edge at first, practically feeling the danger sign vibes smoking off of the man’s skin like a scent. The doctor is dangerous; Will can still feel it in his bones. He’s dealt with enough people like that to recognize one.

But he’s attracted to this one. Not just sexually, but platonically, too—Hannibal is like him in ways that no one else is, seems to understand and accept the parts of Will that most people just couldn’t. They’re both… different.

He looks out the window, finds a tree with a branch nearly splintered off from the storm. Leaves everywhere on the grass. Hannibal has a garden—pink roses and plants with sharp-looking leaves and bleeding hearts. _It’s a color palette,_ Will realizes, and laughs again to himself. _More reds, more whites, some pinks—like wine. It figures._

How could he not come back to this? He imagines coming home from work to find Hannibal sitting in the drawing room, or in the kitchen, cooking. _Domestic._ It’s a romantic fantasy, unrealistic; hell, he’s just met the man. But he likes him. Does it have to be more complicated than that?

He turns from the window, sits down at the table Hannibal’s set for him, and picks up a fork.


End file.
